Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins - review

Hex Hall
Rachel Hawkins
YA U/F
2010

**** (four out of six)

Cover - I like the cover.  There's atmosphere, there are the trees mentioned in the story, the lake, the girl in the uniform and in the reflection?  maybe it's a ghost.

Hex Hall is one of those books that grab your attention from the very first page.  Told in first person, the narrative is humorous and best of all - SOUNDS like a teen girl.

After a spell gone bad, young teen witch Sophie is sent to a boarding school for other teens who've made the mistake of not blending in.  Hex Hall is a place for Fae, shapeshifters, witches and even vampire teens to learn how to control their powers and blend in.  Sophie is roomies with the only student that happens to be a vampire.  Seems vampires are kind of outcasts at Hex Hall - Sophie's roomie is the first vampire to be able to attend, and the other students aren't happy that she's there.  They also aren't too impressed with Sophie - and the fact that Sophie was brought up not know much about her heritage or powers doesn't help matters much...

So the story is cooking along, people are being met, conflict is introduced, stereotypes and bigotry between species, etc.  And then for me the story suddenly - about four fifths of the way in - stopped being so interesting to me.  Can't put my finger on the reason why.  Then suddenly - here comes the final conflict, some scary build up and..... a sudden quick resolution.  Almost anticlimactic.   I don't know if it's because it was YA, or if I'm possibly judging through eyes that are used to reading adult novels.  But the last section of the novel seemed almost like it was a different style of writing.  

However - overall, I still think Hex Hall was a good, interesting, chuckle inducing read with some suspense weaved within the story.  And there's just a bit of a twist in I didn't see coming at first.  Possibly, if I were about 13 or so, I would have been totally wowed.  But I'm in my 50's so that's most likely why I wasn't completely amazed by the story.  I still say that Hex Hall was a fun read though.  Fun with some laughs and that counts for a lot.  So does the fact that the teens sounded like teens.

It's Monday, and I've been slacking on the readin' ...

I feel like I slept all weekend long.  I went to a parade - Sebastopol's (California) Apple Blossom parade - where my grandson was participating with his preschool.  There's nothing like trying to get to another town in the morning in time to catch your grandson...the traffic...the parking...we were actually lucky.  We found parking in store parking lot, very close to the beginning of the parade.  My son drove and let us out while he looked for parking.  we got down to the sidewalk just in time to see my grandson in the bed of the pick up truck,

where he was kind of just looking around until he noticed me.  Then he shouted out "Grandma!!!!"  Very loudly.  Precious, I felt so good.  Then he saw his grandpa, and then his cousin, who I was holding.  He shouted out our names (or titles). 

 We were worried that my son was going to miss him, but it turned out that he parked and walked straight to the sidewalk, then down to where we were so he was able to see his son and call out to him.  We didn't stay much longer, because it was getting hot, my husband's back was bothering him quite a bit.  My granddaughter wasn't sad about leaving at all - she just cared about seeing her cousin.  So we left the parade kind of early and ended up coming home, where I proceeded to nap the day away.

I tried to read - slept.  Ate lunch and tried to read again....slept.  woke up and walked around a bit,  the husband took our granddaughter home and got our grandson ready to go to a baby shower (where his cousin was going to be) and I slept some more.  Woke up for dinner and then tried to read a bit more when....guess.  No really - guess!  I slept some more!  Then I ended up going to bed at around 1130 - ended up awake - wide awake.  Watched Saturday Night Live...and then slept.  

Sunday was  pretty much a repeat - without the parade.  I read, dozed, ate, dozed, tried to read, dozed....and now it's 3 a.m. and I'm wide awake.

Of course, now that I've decided to post this, I'm feeling sleepy....

Hosted by Sheila of Book Journey - It's Monday is all about sharing what we've been reading.  I'd say more, but I'm tired now.  ;)

On my last Monday post, week before last, I had just finished reading The Burn Zone.  I had

two weeks in a row of reading three books.  Wow.  And now I'm back to my new normal of one book a week...except that this past two weeks, I ended up reading only one book...

The one book I finished reading was a book I didn't even have on my radar for reading...

Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins.  I finished it, enjoyed it for the humor in the narration.

It was very hard for me to concentrate on this with the crap goin on in Boston (my youngest son has recently moved to Boston)

Things have been resolved there (as much as possible), my son and his love are safe and happy, We're all as healthy as possible and I have started reading

The Midnight Blue-light Special by Seanan McGuire.  

On the Kindle, I've downloaded and started reading Payoff by Alex Hughes

and

Penny Dread Tales 3 - which contains a story by

J.A. Campbell. (a Brown, Ghost Hunter story) titled Brown Goes Full Steam.

What's next?

Who Knows?

I'm just going to go one book at a time (hahahaha, yeah...right!)

for a while

Me?!? Reading more YA than once in a while? (awkward phrasing, I know...)

I've mentioned a few times, that other than my favorite authors, or the special YA authors that I read - I'm not really into Young Adult fiction. I usually keep my YA reading to authors I already have a history of reading, or writers like J.A. Campbell.    

Possibly because of Campbell, I've had my brain opened up a bit to a few other YA novelists...and I've recently bought a couple YA books ALL ON MY OWN.

This week, I had planned to read some books I've just received, when I remembered I should read a book that's been on my shelves for a while.  I made myself a promise to do this at least once a month - read some languishing novels.

So I grabbed Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins.  this book has been out since 2010.  I started reading it tonight and in a couple hours I ended up almost a third of the way through. 

And parts of it are funny.  This character has a funny sense of humor, even though you know there are some dark moments coming up.

I'm surprised at how much I'm enjoying this.

hmmmmmmm.....